Tourists watch an ancient Chinese costume show at the Yongning Pavilion. (Photo: GT)

The Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition received about 327,000 visitors during the four-day Labor Day holiday, The Beijing News reported on Sunday. 

More than 734,000 tourists visited the most popular venues at the exhibition, such as the China Pavilion, the International Pavilion, the Life Experience Pavilion, the Botany Pavilion and the Guirui Theater, Lei Lei, an official with the organizing committee told The Beijing News. 

China opened the world's largest ever gardening show on April 29 in the Beijing suburb of Yanqing. During the 162-day exhibition, visitors will be able to enjoy more than 1,200 varieties of flowers in 100 gardens and about 2,500 shows and cultural events. 

The organizer expects to welcome more than 16 million visitors to the exhibition, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Named "Expo at the Foot of the Great Wall," the exhibition occupied an area of 503 hectares, equivalent to almost 704 football pitches. 

It is the second time for China to hold the horticultural show. The city of Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan Province held the International Horticultural Exposition in 1999. 

During the Labor Day holiday, some 132 activities were staged by performers from China, central and eastern European countries, such as float parades, world ethnic and folk cultural performances, and cultural and art carnivals, Xinhua said.